Hackers Charged in Crackdown on LulzSec, Anonymous Groups

By Patricia Hurtado and Michael Riley -
Mar 6, 2012

The U.S. charged six alleged members
of Anonymous, LulzSec and other hacking groups with trying to
break into computers used by News Corp.’s Fox (NWSA) Broadcasting,
security firm HBGary Inc. and foreign governments including Yemen.

Ryan Ackroyd, Jake Davis, Darren Martyn and Donncha
O’Cearrbhail were charged in an indictment unsealed today in
Manhattan federal court, the Office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. Jeremy Hammond was arrested in
Chicago and accused of crimes related to the hack of Strategic
Forecasting Inc., or Stratfor.

Hector Xavier Monsegur, an “influential member” of
Anonymous, Internet Feds and LulzSec, pleaded guilty in August
to conspiracy to engage in computer hacking, prosecutors said.
Monsegur, known as “Sabu,” was accused of attacking the
websites of the governments of Algeria, Yemen and Zimbabwe. He
also helped try to hack Tribune Co. and Fox, prosecutors said.

The hackers arrested are among the de facto leadership of
Anonymous, the self-professed hacker-activist group, and
LulzSec, or Lulz Security, an affiliated group, according to
Barrett Brown, an informal Anonymous spokesman, whose apartment
in Dallas was raided this morning. Monsegur continued to work
with Anonymous until last week, Brown said. Monsegur’s plea was
only made public today.

CIA Website

LulzSec took responsibility for compromising user accounts
from Sony Pictures in 2011 and for taking the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency website offline, as well as hacking the
website of the Atlanta branch of InfraGard, an FBI affiliate.

O’Cearrbhail, 19, of Birr, Ireland, is charged with the
illegal hacking of a Jan. 17 conference call between federal
agents in the U.S. and agents with the National Police Service
of Ireland. U.S. authorities said that the intrusion was
essentially the equivalent of an illegal wiretap by a computer
hacker.

Monsegur agreed to cooperate with the U.S. investigation,
according to a transcript of his August plea hearing. U.S.
District Judge Loretta Preska told Monsegur that he could face a
sentence of 122 1/2 years in prison, according to the
transcript.

‘Absolute Traitor’

Brown said Monsegur had access to confidential dealings
among the top leadership of both LulzSec and Anonymous. He said
it’s unclear to members of the group what information Monsegur
may have passed to the FBI as he continued to work on
operations, including the hack of Stratfor.

“They managed to get people who are very important, the de
facto leadership,” Brown said. “That’s something they haven’t
been able to do up to now.”

FBI agents raided Brown’s Dallas apartment at 6:30 a.m. and
later showed up at his mother’s house in Dallas, where he had
been staying. He said some agents remained outside.

Brown said there had been rumors over the past several
weeks that Monsegur was working with authorities.

“I wrote it off as mistakes or a false-flag operation by
the FBI,” he said.

Hammond, who identified himself as a member of AntiSec, was
charged with the December 2011 hack of Austin, Texas-based
intelligence firm Stratfor, which the U.S. says might have
affected 860,000 victims. Hammond appeared today in federal
court in Chicago and agreed to be transferred in custody to New
York to face the charges against him, Randall Samborn, a
spokesman for Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, said in
an e-mail.

Controversial Hack

Brown said Monsegur was responsible for the release of
personal information of law enforcement and military personnel
obtained following the Stratfor hack, which he described as
controversial within Anonymous.

“The release of the credit cards on the Stratfor hack,
that was Sabu,” Brown said. “In terms of incriminating other
people, who knows what he may have done?”

Monsegur was allowed to remain free on $50,000 bond and
remains under the supervision of the FBI “with respect to
travel and reporting,” court records show.